he served in the united states navy for 20 years. this raises serious questions about the level of security clearance he might have had and his access to top secret information. "outfront" tonight, chris lawrence. what specifically do federal agents expect him of doing? >> basically, they say in the the indictment that he tried to give a secret document to someone that detailed how to track u.s. submarines. now, this document basically not only outlined the procedures you would use to do that, but the actual technology that you would need to track u.s. submarines. it's very serious because us navy officials will often tell us where surface ships and carriers are located around the world at any particular moment. they almost never discuss where the subs are. that is classified information. now, the zimt says that hoffman thought he was giving this to a russian intelligence agent. actually, what he was doing was handing it over to an fbi agent working an undercover sting. these are very serious charges. he could face life in prison. >>